Chapter 103

"Don't forget; we need to take you shopping, this morning," she reminded him.

"I remember," he replied with a smile, before following Wendell and Sirius from the room.

In the office and sitting across the desk from one another, Sirius immediately got down to business. "Firstly, what has Dumbledore told you about why you and your parents were attacked back when you were a baby?" he asked.

"Nothing," Harry immediately replied. "Except that my parents were fighting against Riddle, but had to go into hiding as he'd targeted them."

"Did he say why?"

"No," he replied. "And no matter how hard I pushed to learn more he wouldn't tell me."

Sirius sighed and said, "Well, then; I will."

Harry sat up straighter so he could better learn what he was about to be told.

"Back a few months before you were born, a prophecy was given. I don't know the details of it because it's stored inside what's known as a prophecy orb in a section of the Department of Mysteries in the basement of the Ministry of Magic.

"The only people who can touch the orb - and, therefore, hear what's in it - are the people who it involves. One is you, and the other is 'the Dark Lord'. Dumbledore knows what's in it because, according to the little card that identifies the orb, the prophecy was spoken to him by the person who gave the prophecy."

"If that's the case," said Harry. "Then anyone can know of what the prophecy said just by Dumbledore telling them."

"Yes," nodded Sirius. "But, can you see him doing that? Especially after you just told me you've already asked him why Riddle is after you and he refuses to answer?"

"No," Harry frowned. "So, how do I get to hear it?"

"You need to go down to the Department of Mysteries and ask," Sirius immediately replied. "I need to organise with you and them a time when you can do that."

Harry thought about that for a few moments before he said, "When we can, I think."

"I agree," said his godfather. "But, it's already been fifteen years. There's no need to go running there right now. It can wait a couple of days, or even weeks, at least."

Harry gave a grunt and nodded back. "Yeah. It's not as if it changes anything, does it?"

Once he saw that Harry would agree, Sirius told him what he actually wanted to tell him about.

"This has to do with why Riddle is still managing to be on this plane of existence; why he hasn't passed on to his... Next Great Adventure," explained Sirius.

The way Sirius emphasised it, Harry even heard the capitals.

He gave another nod and Sirius began to tell him a tale of his morning the previous day.

He spoke about how he met, as previously arranged, a team of Unspeakables who needed to get into the Black Townhouse, which was a property of the Blacks on Grimmauld Place in South London.

"It's actually the place where I grew up and ran away from, when I was sixteen," he said. "I ran to the home of your grandparents, Fleamont and Euphemia Potter, and your father's when he was a child. They welcomed me into their home with open arms, as they said they would if I needed a place to escape to. But, that's a story for a different time. This is about the Black Townhouse.

"You see, from basically a year or two after I... left, my mother was in the house on her own except for a house elf named Kreacher. When my mother died quite a few years ago, the house elf decided to serve her portrait she had painted in her place. However, as you know, a house elf slowly begins to die if they're not properly bonded. And Kreacher bonded himself to the portrait. The only magic sustaining him was the wards on the property, which was nowhere near enough.

"So, Kreacher used as little magic as possible to draw out his service to my mother's portrait. As a result, the townhouse has fallen into bad disrepair. In a nutshell, it's now a dump. But, it's still protected because the wards on it are still strong.

"As I'm the Lord Black the Unspeakables needed me to get into the property. They could have got in by brute-forcing their way in but, as the property is in a high density muggle residential area, they'd have had to breach the Statute of Secrecy while doing so. And even the Unspeakables are leery about doing that.

"Once I was declared innocent they knew that I, as Lord Black, could simply let them in."

"Why'd they need to get in?" asked Harry.

"They believed there was an artefact in there that forms one of the reasons how Riddle is still about and causing mischief," replied Sirius. "They were right. And they found it."

"They intend to destroy it though, right?" asked Harry, a little worried.

"Yes, Pup," his godfather was quick to assure him. "I believe they would have done it by now, too."

"Does that mean that Riddle's gone now, too?"

"No. Riddle created, at least, more than one of these things," replied Sirius. "They found another in the school when they went there a couple days ago."

"Oh, I remember that," said Harry. "That is, I remember them visiting. They removed a curse from the DADA position and banished Binns."...